My three-year-old daughter discovered it last week when she saw me watching it on YouTube, fell in love with it instantly, and insists on watching it at least once a day. Because her brother is rather less enamoured of it (he's older, and more interested in narrative), I ended up ripping it to my iPhone and just handing it to her whenever she brings up the "snowy train film".

Seeing as this thread has been revived, I just want to say that, left field suggestion or not, I introduced my son to this short a couple of years ago when he was 2 years old based on your recommendation. He was going through a train obsession period, and requested it all the time. I suspect he would love The General, so I need to give that a shot sometime. He's been going through a space obsession lately, so we sat down and watched the first episode of the new Cosmos series, and he surprised me by being interested for the full hour.

I've never really tried to force my son into watching certain films. The only one that comes to mind is The Snowman, which he didn't care for, but it was 2 years ago. I'll have to try again with that one, as it was always a favourite of mine. He has been interested in some films I've been watching when he walks on in - Modern Times, The Kid, some Three Stooges shorts, The Adventures of Robin Hood and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He was also intrigued by the animation in Is The Man Who is Tall Happy?, Gondry's conversation with Noam Chomsky.

Last week, he chose to sit down and watch The Princess and the Frog and Super Buddies, one of those talking dog movies. I didn't join him for the latter, but I don't begrudge him watching junk movies. He was thoroughly into it, and that's all that matters for me. We all watched junk movies when we were younger, and still do now.

I want to thank whoever mentioned Lotte Reiniger upthread: my 4-year old daughter loves Reiniger's short Papageno. I haven't showed her the other shorts yet, but I did take the opportunity to show her a live recording of the 'Papageno / Papagena' aria from The Magic Flute.

My two year old son mostly likes to watch clips of tractors, forklifts and combine harvesters, so he did enjoy Snow, but his favorite two videos this week are the skeleton fight from Jason and the Argonauts and the Paddington trailer.

And then there's the baby, who just spent a couple of minutes completely hypnotised by Oskar Fischinger's Optical Poem.

Not sure if these have been mentioned previously: I remember as a child being quite taken with George Pal's 7 Faces of Dr. Lao. Randall's performance was never problematic for me, tho I can understand others' reservations.

No such reservations meet the series of 3 Soviet animated shorts of Vinni-Pukh (Winnie the Pooh). They're not widely available (tho I think they may be on YouTube), but they get my highest recommendation. They are charming, utterly brilliant, and not-to-be-missed.

Here's the situation: I live in a rural part of South Africa and am involved with a local primary school (which my youngest son still attends). The school is culturally diverse with learners coming from households that really cover the extremes of the socio-economic spectrum. Age group is about 10 to 13 years. Through my involvement with the school's governing body I have a tentative open door to get a film club started.

The idea would be in the first instance to entertain, but also to expose the kids to films they wouldn't find at the local video store (finding the latest Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Picture is about as much as you could hope for). From the school's side there is interest for the concept not just to culturally educate, but possibly also enforce values. I envisage a regular session, possibly monthly on a Friday eve, where one would have a introductory talk, screen the film, and have the possibility for discussion afterwards.

Typically the learners would attend with their parents. The film hence would have to speak to both, though not necessarily on the same level. Films have to be age-appropriate and steer clear of controversy (language, violence, sex etc) if the project is to endure. I specifically accept that not everything I show to my kids at home would be acceptable at the school. One probably also has to reckon with a limited concentration span.

I have been thinking of some of the Studio Ghibli films (in particular My Neighbour Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service), High Noon, Bad Day At Black Rock (although

At what point can toddlers enjoy a movie (at, say, a "family screening" -- I won't be that jerk invading real screenings with a crying kid)? A local rep house is planning a child-oriented Buster Keaton series. You'd think that might be a hit with kids, at least the ones too young to know that black and white is uncool. Is it? How old? Or better, what's the range of what works? Anecdotal data welcome.

At what point can toddlers enjoy a movie (at, say, a "family screening" -- I won't be that jerk invading real screenings with a crying kid)? A local rep house is planning a child-oriented Buster Keaton series. You'd think that might be a hit with kids, at least the ones too young to know that black and white is uncool. Is it? How old? Or better, what's the range of what works? Anecdotal data welcome.

I haven't had my own toddler to experiment on, but I have had some experience with festival screenings where very little kids are encouraged (for the purposes of longterm indoctrination, no doubt). These include specially curated animation programmes and silent comedies. Generally, the kids love it and are well-behaved (in a manner of speaking - sometimes vocal or rowdy, but rarely screaming and crying). In many cases, they've never experienced the ritual of going to the cinema - the big difference between cinema and television - and some of them find it strange and magical (particularly if the screening is taking place in an old cinema palace or other especially grand auditorium). Even the idea of turning off the lights to watch a movie can strike them as exotic.

Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd always go down well, and they tend to get swiftly absorbed in the story. The animation programmes are more restless, as there's the stop and start nature of it, and all those (brief) credits, but usually that space is just filled with the children talking to their parents about what they just saw.

At Safety Last last year, I overheard one little boy after the screening (about six or seven, so not exactly a toddler) tell his dad that "that was the best film I've EVER SEEN!" A minute or two later, I heard a woman in her twenties tell her girlfriend almost exactly the same thing ("that was the funniest film I've ever seen.")

I've taken my nearly four-year-old daughter to animated movies at the theater since she was about 2-1/2; for her, it just requires a lot of talking up the rituals and rules of moviegoing beforehand, and occasional reminders about talking versus whispering. I also reinforce some of these rituals when we watch movies at home, and she does quite well in both situations. As with all things with kids, it's all in how they're prepared for new experiences.

I'm not sure how old I was when my dad started taking me to silent screenings. I don't think I was a toddler but The Gold Rush is one of my earliest film memories so I'm guessing I was 6 or so. Obviously I can't really remember how well-behaved I was or the age ranges of the kids there but I always had a great time and I'm grateful I got to be exposed to Chaplin and Keaton that early. Based on family-oriented screenings I've been to in recent years, I'm sure other parents will be bringing young children along so you should be just fine.

We showed our kids some silents (including Gold Rush when they were 6 or 7). They were interested. When they were a bit older -- and were big Lloyd fans -- they were frustrated that they couldn't get any cousins or friends to watch along...

My daughter, 8, likes Chaplin and she's enjoyed some Melies after seeing Hugo recently. She's watched Lloyd and Keaton as well and parts of Phantom of the Opera. But she really likes Chaplin and occasionally I would put one on for her to watch. When she was 3 she watched the Gold Rush a lot.

Kids really differ, though. I've been taking her to the theater since she was 2 1/2 and she's always been good. She'll also watch anything.

My son, on the other hand, will be 5 this year and he has a hard time with movies. He likes super heroes and really will only watch those, but even then he can't sit still. I take him to the theater and once in a while he does fine, but most of the time he gets up and starts wandering around. He won't watch silents, though has sat still for a few minutes watching Chaplin.

I started showing my son, now 8, some Keaton when he was about 3. He was into Thomas the Train at the time, so I showed him The General (which he always referred to as "Buster on the Train." Steamboat Bill Jr. was "Buster on the Boat"). He always wanted me to fast-forward the parts that didn't take place on the train, but he's grown out of that and now still wants me to show him Keatons he hasn't seen, which is great. My 5-year-old daughter has also liked Keaton and the few other silents we've watched for family movie night, The Gold Rush and Safety Last!, though there were restless moments with both her and her brother. On the other hand, my youngest daughter, who's now 3, isn't as likely to sit still for that long. Being the youngest of three, we've probably ruined her with too many screens trying to keep her occupied while we deal with the other two kids.

All in all, it sounds like a great opportunity. You mentioned that it's kid-oriented anyway, but the great thing about silents is that they're harder for kids to ruin for other people since there's no dialogue for them to talk over.

In terms of actual cinema, I started both my children with The Red Balloon and Paddle to the Sea right around the age of 2, and was shocked as to how much they were enthralled by what are essentially purely visual narratives.

Also, just to add this; my 6 year-old boy loses attention much more quickly in the theatre than his 4 year-old sister. She's built for movie watching. I could show her anything, and have probably shown her things waaaaaayyyy too mature for her age level (Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Porky's {kidding on the latter}), but my dad also took me to a 1977 re-release of Jaws when I was 6, so bad parenting decisions are in my DNA.